Crisis
by Kenuck
Summary: [Part 1 of 3] Emotions run wild when you're in a crisis.


**Title**: Crisis  
**Author**: Kenuck  
**Fandom**: CSI: New York  
**Characters**: Danny Messer, Lindsay Monroe, Don Flack.  
**Rating**: T  
**Warning**: Mature language.  
**Disclaimer**: "Crisis" is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.  
**Author's Notes**: Based loosely on a dream I once had. Thanks to the wonderful **Cazzie** & **Spunky** for the beta.

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The first scent I registered when I walked through the front door of an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of downtown Manhattan, my assigned crime scene, was the strong smell of bleach; the smell was so intense I considered tying a paper mask around my mouth to filter the air I breathed.

Dispatch had received a call from a frantic man, claiming he had been walking his dog past the building when the wind changed direction and he caught a whiff of an overpowering scent and, out of curiosity, entered the edifice to find a dead body.

I had passed the visibly disturbed man, who was being interviewed by Flack, and his jumpy chocolate Labrador on my way in, stopping briefly to say hello to the blue-eyed detective.

The interior of the vacant warehouse was dilapidated, the cement floor covered with broken glass from the damaged windows, dirt, animal excrement, and various pieces of litter and trash. I was thankful that the patrol officers who had arrived earlier had set up work lights to brighten up the otherwise dark crime scene.

Standing beside a work light, seven feet from the body, was a uniformed officer whom I had assumed to have pulled the short straw and was assigned to body duty. He rocked on the balls of his feet, lost in a bubble of boredom, his face stuck in an overwhelmed expression.

"Have you cleared the scene?" I asked him, setting down my kit a few feet from the mangled body.

"First thing I did, Detective." He spoke with a respectful tone, one I had only heard on a few patrol officers since my move to the city.

"Anything you can tell me about the victim or the scene?"

"Detective Flack is interviewing Bill Hemlock, who found the body. When I was securing the scene, I noticed a blood trail leading away from the body," he said, pointing.

I snapped on the second latex glove of a new pair and looked out into the darkness where the lights did not penetrate. "What did you find at the end of the trail?"

"Oh, I didn't follow it. It looks like it leads outside, where the perimeter officers would've checked," he admitted. "Judging by the uh, stab wound in the vic's gut," he said, attempting to better himself, "it's gotta be related."

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. "Okay, thanks." I grabbed my mini Maglite from my kit and headed off in the direction the officer had indicated, pausing once to take a small glimpse at the body. The victim - a nameless young man - lay in a puddle of a wet substance that smelled intensely like bleach, a bloodied stab wound in his abdomen.

Swallowing the mass that had collected in the back of my throat, I walked off, following the blood drops. The directionality of them suggested that the victim had been attacked elsewhere, staggered around and then collapsed where he died, and then was subjected to a bleach shower.

The trail led me through the dirty building, my footfalls echoing, and out through another set of doors to a large contractor dumpster. A flickering light above shone weakly on the back alley barely lighting up the area.

The doors creaked behind me, startling me. I turned and faced Flack, my light shining directly in his face.

He covered his face and groaned. "Watch where you're shining that."

"Watch where you're stepping," I said, pointing at the ground where he's standing. "There's blood evidence on the ground that I haven't photographed yet." I studied his face, picking up a bad vibe. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Flack said, stepping around the blood drops and coming up beside me. "But Danny just arrived, so I wanted to give you a heads-up."

I sighed taxingly. "Thanks, Flack. Where is he?"

"Inside photographing the body," he said. Touching my arm lightly, he said, "How are you holding up?"

"I'm great." Truth is, I wasn't. Ever since we went our ways three weeks ago, deciding that being together wasn't the best thing for us at the time, I had been a wreck. I spent most of my nights on the couch, channel surfing until the early hours of the morning, my mind unwilling to lose interest in the possibilities of what Danny Messer was up to. Was he asleep? Was he sitting on his couch like me, reminiscing of our first date? Or maybe he was out on the town, having a good time?

"So, what have you found?"

"Nothing yet," I said. "The evidence is telling me that our victim was stabbed out here, staggered inside, and then collapsed."

"And the bleach?"

"Probably poured on him to contaminate traces of the killer." I stepped around the side of the dumpster and was nearly knocked over as a man jumped at me, grabbing me violently and spinning me around to face Flack, who had quickly drawn and aimed his gun.

I didn't fight the man, for I could see the glimmer of a bloodied fishing knife in the corner of my eye. More than likely, this was the man who had killed our victim, the blood on the knife belonging to the twenty-something man lying dead in the warehouse - the same warehouse where Danny was processing.

"Sir," Flack warned, "put the knife down and let her go. You don't want to do this."

The man was hysterical. "I already killed a man," he said, a small whine in his voice.

"Right, and we don't want to add another fatality to your name, so let the nice woman go." Flack's gun was still aimed, his eyes still locked on his target.

He held me closer, my body pinned against him with his forearm clamped tightly over my chest. I could feel his body tremble, whether from adrenaline or fear, I couldn't tell.

"Come on," Flack urged. "You're not going to win. In the time it will take me to pull the trigger and the bullet to reach your skull, you'll still be moving to stab her. Don't make me shoot you."

"Let me go, and this detective will ask you a few questions about what happened, or you can stab me. But you should know, as soon as that knife pierces my skin, a bullet's going in your head," I said softly.

"The way I see it, you're gonna either going to be in prison, or with a needle in your arm for killing a New York detective," said Flack, his still finger on the trigger of his gun.

"You have a choice. Make the right one."

The man began to loosen his grip on me. My heart began to flutter, realizing he was going to let me go and be brave enough to turn himself in.

"I'm sorry," he said in a tremulous tone. I was ready to say something comforting to let him know he had made the right decision when suddenly, he said: "I can't go to prison."

I felt the sharp blow of the knife as it pierced my clothes and entered my side, tearing my skin, and then was pulled out. As I fell to the ground, the blast of Flack's gun rocked me, the body of the man falling to the ground with a loud thud as dead weight connected with the pavement.

"We need some help back here!" Flack bellowed, making a quick dash to the man, kicking the knife away and checking for a pulse, before kneeling my side. "He's dead, Lindsay," he said, taking off his jacket and placing it under my head for support. "Where are you hurt?"

I lifted my right arm, my muscles convulsing as I moved, and revealed my wound. Immediately, Flack unzipped my thin jacket and peeled it back to further expose the blood-soaked area where the knife had entered through my sweater.

The back door of the warehouse careened, slamming open, as someone ran out. Running into my view, I could see panic etched into Danny's face, his gun in his hand. "What the fuck happened?"

"SOL," Flack said, pulling out his cell phone. "Suspect on location grabbed Lindsay. We tried to negotiate, but in the end . . . "

Flack rose to his feet and frantically punched three numbers into his phone - conceivably nine-one-one - as Danny kneeled by my side where Flack had been. Danny pulled off his jacket and quickly unbuttoned his shirt with the same precision at removing clothes that I had seen before, and manoeuvred his arms out. He balled up the blue dress shirt and pressed it tight against my wound.

"This is Detective Flack, I need a priority one on an ambulance . . . "

I mewled as Danny pressed down, pain trumping every other emotion I felt. A stampede of boots beating against the ground came closer, the yells of patrol officers echoing. Flack's voice was heard, telling the officers to stay back and further secure the area.

My chest ached; it felt as if someone were repetitively kicking me from within as my lungs filled with air. Pressure continued to build up; as did my worry that I would explode. Pain coursed through my body, the knife no longer lodged seemingly between two ribs in my chest. It felt as if something in my brain was bursting, every cell working on overdrive to fight through the agony. I felt tears spring to my eyes, flowing like water from a broken dam as I whimpered through broken breaths.

"Hang in there, Lindsay," Danny said softly. He brushed my hair from my eyes, my body feeling a small tingle of excitement through the pain as his warm, gloved hand touched my forehead.

Through all of the confusion and approaching sirens, I heard silence. Silence that triggered a memory in my mind: a bleak May night where I had given in to the sweet temptation taunting me. Rain beat rhythmically down, the loud drumming of the drops were background music as our bodies collided, becoming one in the silence of my apartment. It was that same silence I remember from that moment as I lay with Danny that diffused the air behind the warehouse.

My mouth became deluged with the metallic taste of blood and I coughed, my blood spraying from my mouth. I turned my head away from Danny, and coughed violently, the dark blood dripping from my lips like red poison. It pained me to cough as hard as I did, but with blood filling up my lungs and mouth, there was no other way to expel it.

"I'm sorry," he said suddenly, grabbing my hand.

"For what?" I managed.

"I'm sorry that we were together," he said, his eyes filling with tears, "only to break apart and torment each other with the thought that we were right to break up in the first place."

That was it. I couldn't contain it anymore. I began to sob wholeheartedly, gasping for air as teardrops trickled down my face. I squeezed my eyes shut through the wave of nausea now gripping me.

"I love you, Danny," I whispered, gripping his hand tight. Those were the last words I said before my eyes rolled back into my head and I drifted into darkness.


End file.
